Thursday, 21 May 2009

Hello my little loves! Apologies for not having posted very much lately - haven't been feeling particularly inspired (this mainly comes from the fact I haven't been shopping in a LONG time -trying to be good and not spend money in the frivolous way I usually do).

Don't fret though, have got a few posts coming up which should be quite interesting. I'm working on something in particular that will probably be a big'un, not sure how long it's going to take me, because I want it to be well-written, but soon, children, soon. Anyways, over the past week or so, a few Resort collections for 2010 have popped up, so here's some of my favourite pieces so far...Compared to the Bottega Veneta and Chanel collections (which I'm going to talk about in just a moment), Erdem was minimal to say the least. The pieces were relaxed yet elegant; lots of feminine, wearable dresses and skirts, which not only looked stylish, but also really comfortable. (does that make me sound like an old women? "Oh it looks SO comfortable!") I love the floor-length cocktail dress with the slouchy t-shirt neckline. The floral prints reminded a little bit of recent Basso and Brooke collections, but then, Basso Brooke are print fiends so it's easy to make a connection...

The Chanel show took place in Venice, one of Coco Chanel's favourite locations, and the show itself, according to style.com, was full of clever references to the city, most of which I would never get because I'm not very up on my knowledge of Venetian history. Regardless of references, this show was ridiculously good and I'm particularly loving the 1920s-style hair and makeup; those dark, smudgy eyes look FA-HAB-ULOUS! Also really enjoying the nautical feel of the beachwear and quite desperately want the bag in the first photo!

So, this is a reference to gondoliers, right?

Other highlights for me, include, this incredibly decadent, dirty gold dress with matching cardigan type thing (it's hard to tell from the picture, ok?!) and that lovely, uber-1920s lacy number.

And finally, proof that Karl Lagerfeld is not only a genius, but also has a sense of humour;

Sunglasses, on a stick! Like a masquerade masque! How can nobody have thought of this before?!

Despite Chanel's crazy eye-wear, my favourite collection so far has been that of Bottega Veneta, as it made me have one of those moments where I just kept going "Oh, but I love it all!" Very chic, very simple, very cool. Tomas Maier went in a very different direction with this show, opting for vibrant block shades of oranges, pinks and blues, rather than the usual, more subdued tones. I just love the really relaxed tailoring of these first pieces;

After the smart stuff came some playful beachwear and killer accessories. Massive necklaces are well and truly here to stay - they're everywhere! Also, isn't it weird how, what is ultimately a black pair of Bridget Jones pants, can look so glam?

Last of all came these beautiful gowns. Sometimes less really is more - no frills, no embroidery, no fuss. Just lots of lovely, floaty fabric. Imagine being clad in that much pink!

Chanel Iman has stolen my heart a little bit - she is truly FIERCE! And with a name like Chanel Iman, it'd be a crime for her not to be...

So that's what we've got so far from the Resort shows. There will surely be more coming soon - I'll keep you posted!

Sunday, 17 May 2009

Sunday, 10 May 2009

Just a quick post, following on from yesterday's.

Despite Sheniqua's claims that the fashion show would be a formal affair, I decided to wear my new black dress from the Topshop sale, the leather jacket of dreams and these crazy pompom shoes (again from Topshop);

I love these shoes - I very rarely wear them because they're so bloomin' special - look at the pompoms! Look at the heel! They even came with a little silky shoebag to keep them all protected and clean!

I also wore my new massive earrings (again from the Topshop sale - what's wrong with me?!), which are jangly to the max, but also exceptionally heavy. I did fear that my earlobes would become elongated during the course of the night, due to the sheer weight of the things. I suppose it all comes down to the question of would you be willing to risk developing freakishly long earlobes for the sake of some fabulous earrings? The answer is clearly yes, yes I would.

Pat Butcher eat your heart out

Seriously - SO heavy!

Anyway, the moral of this story is that when you go out wearing an outfit which consists of fabulous yet somewhat painful shoes and super jingly jangly earrings - manage your time carefully. Otherwise you end up having to leg it for the bus which results in majorly sore feet AND sore ears!

Let this be a lesson, kids - jangly earrings and running do not mix...

Saturday, 9 May 2009

I just got back from seeing the UK touring production of Little Shop of Horrors - it was wonderful and has filled me with a desire to get back on a stage and sing to my little heart's content... sadly I'm not sure when I'm going to get the chance to do that, so for now I'll have to just stick to belting out showtunes in the comfort of my bedroom and looking at this photograph of Audrey II from time to time...

"Feed me Seymooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrr"

Anyway, that's not really the point of this post; what I really wanted to tell you about was what I did on Wednesday.

What did you do on Wednesday? Huh? HUH?!

Well kiddies, on Wednesday evening, I went to my very first fashion show! I know! Exciting right? Well, exciting for me because I've never been to one and (due to my friend being very well connected) we were treated as VIPs and I thought maybe this could be quite a good opportunity for me to meet some fashiony people and do some networking!

The show was for House of Suga's S/S 2010, they're a new brand from Liverpool, designed by four local girls. It was held in the Anglican Cathedral, which is a breath-takingly beautiful, massive old building with a huge aisle that served as a catwalk and stained glass windows all around. When we arrived we were treated to free wine and lovely, lovely canapes (I'll be honest, I pretty much gorged myself on smoked salmon blinis - the wonderful thing about fashion parties is that nobody actually eats the food; fortunately, my friend and I weren't interested in fitting in with the fashion crowd, and quite frankly, we were bloody hungry!).

It got even better when I realised that, being VIPs, we'd be sitting on the front row for the show itself and that we would be getting GOODIE BAGS!

I tried to be cool about the freebies, I really did. I figured that a seasoned fashion show go-er probably wouldn't nose dive into a goodie bag like a three year old faced with a pile of bubble wrap and cardboard boxes on Christmas Day. However, my friend (for the sake of anonymity, we'll call her Sheniqua) had told me that the goodie bags would be filled with gifts from Harrods, (God only knows why I believed her...) so I did get a bit over-excited.

Contents as follows - lots of those mini perfume samples they give you in John Lewis when you buy something from a makeup counter (including Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb, which I think smells a lot like Angel by Thierry Mugler...), some random fliers about local Liverpool beauticians etc, a magnetic backgammon set by Dunhill which was lovely but, well...why?! and some weird tasting chocolate buttons and chocolate Lambananas -

This is a chocolate Lambanana - modelled on the Super Lambanana, which is a stupid sculpture in Liverpool, that everyone, apart from me, loves. Basically, imagine the above, but bright yellow and about the size of a rhinoceros - it's shit.

So the goodie bags weren't exactly filled with the stuff of dreams, but a freebie's a freebie in my book, and those mini perfumes are really useful for when you're travelling and don't want to take a massive bottle of perfume with you. As I already said, I don't know why I believed Sheniqua's ramblings about Harrods - she had also told me that all the guests would be wearing floor length gowns and tuxedos - fortunately I'd had the foresight to check and found out that this really was not, in any possible way, the case. Basically, Sheniqua's mental.

You may, at this point, be wondering why I am rambling on about goodie bags and chocolate mutant sheep when this is a fashion blog and I was at a fashion show - what about the clothes?!

Well, I don't have a lot to say about the clothes because they weren't really to my tastes at all. Think Miss Sixty and River Island - very bright colours, lots of sequins and patterns - a mixture of clubwear and beachwear for the very daring or very attention seeking. I wasn't massively impressed, but at the same time, this was their first show, and they had also been faced with the major setback of some of their garments not being delivered to the venue, meaning that they had to drop several models and didn't get to show all of their designs.

However, if you're going to put on a fashion show in the Anglican Cathedral and make a big old song and dance about it, and have loads of press there, well, you should probably bring the goods to back it up and in my eyes, what it all came down to was that House of Suga seemed a bit out of their depth.

I just don't think they were ready for such a big event - some of the designs looked more like mock-ups than actual finished pieces and a lot of their models were awkward and had horrendous walks; I'm pretty sure that Miss Jay Alexander would have had a nervous breakdown. Hopefully, with a bit more time and experience, the House of Suga brand will grow into something notable and exciting; it's always nice to see something new come out of Liverpool, but for the moment, no number of smoked salmon canapes and mini perfumes could distract from the fact that they've got a long way to go yet.

The more I look at the Top Model photos, the more I just think "meh". The only thing I like is Allison's face, and that's because I always like her and her giant eyes. I don't know, is it just because the Camilla Åkrans photos are SO gorgeous, that these pale in comparison? It just feels like there's something not quite right about them, I don't really get what they're going for. Actually, I don't think anyone really knew what they were trying to achieve on this shoot because Jay Manuel kept giving them all conflicting instructions, so bloody frustrating! Seriously though, I keep looking at that photo of Celia and thinking "who the hell styled her?!"

And don't even get me started on the Ciara shoot - a crazed fan wearing underwear, tangled in her mic wire?! What the crap was that?

Also, we're on Cycle 12 now and I think they were auditioning Cycle 13 recently - how many more "America's Next Top Models" do they need to find? It must be a bit of an anti-climax for the winner -

"Woohoo! You're America's next TOP model! You'll be huge! You'll be on the cover of Seventeen magazine! Just like the Jonas Brothers! You'll be the face of Covergirl! Oooh mascara! Hurray!

...Right, well that was fun, congratulations... ummm...cycle 12 girl, we're off to go and find America's NEXT next top model - ok bye!"

Anyway, I'd love to know people's thoughts on this - is it just me or are the Top Model shoots going downhill? Actually is Top Model generally just going downhill? Is anyone else sick of Nigel Barker being so snooty? And is anyone else frightened that Tyra's hair is getting so big that it's only a matter of time before a goodbye hug results in one of the girls suffocating in her weave?

Monday, 4 May 2009

Saturday, 2 May 2009

Zut alors! I didn't realise how long it'd been since my last post - bad Little Curly Girl, this really will not do.

I don't have much of an excuse except that I went to London last week, came back and then was back down there again before I had time to really think about it.

It's now 1.20am and I need to rest my head, so I'm going to try and keep this short, but I've got much to speak of so let's just see how it goes, shall we?

First off, the Topshop sale started last week, and while I didn't manage to get hold of a cheap blazer (they had a few but sadly not in my size), I did buy a new dress and some jingly jangly earrings;

Not sure if you can really see from the photos (courtesy of topshop.com), but the bottom is all hitched up, kind of like a saloon girl or a lady pirate. You can never have too many black dresses, especially not ones that are as versatile as this and at £15 it pretty much would have been a criminal offence not to buy it. The earrings I bought aren't on the website, so I'll show them in another post - can't be bothered getting all snap-happy now. But rest assured they are jangly and brilliant.

All in all, I was impressed with the sale; if I'd had more money and the shop hadn't been so goddamn hot and hectic, I'd have probably tried on and spent more.

Now that was the Liverpool store. While killing some time on Monday afternoon in London, I took an eye-opening trip to the Oxford Street store.

Oh. Sweet. Kittens. I can't believe I've never been there before. It's just...so...BIG! They have two basements - you go down once, then you go down again! There was so much to look at! So many brands and concessions and vintage things and shoes and they have a Nails INC and an eyebrow threading studio and a place where you can get your hair blow dried! And they have toilets! AND a cafe! A cafe INSIDE Topshop! You could basically live there and maintain a perfectly groomed, stylish life. That is, until the security guards realised that the "Topshop hermit", which they had previously thought was just a myth conjured up by busy mothers trying to frighten their children into not wandering away from the changing rooms, was actually a real thing, living on bagels and dancing around the store at night wearing Sass & Bide jeans and Johnny Loves Rosie hair accessories.

But I digress. I didn't actually buy anything in the London Topshop, even though the sale was massive and I'm sure I could have found many wonderful things had I stayed longer, but I didn't really have time as I had to get across London to meet a certain Ealing-residing lady to go to a concert. Or 'gig' as the young folks say.

After a brief mishap which involved me firstly getting lost on Oxford Street trying to find the entrance to the tube and then getting trapped in rush hour traffic while underground, I finally met up with my lady friend and we made our way to the Soho Theatre to see the lovely Camille O'Sullivan.

Camille O'Sullivan is the sort of person who, if she was living in a 1940s cheesy American film, she would walk past a group of men and they'd stop and stare and then say "What a woman!" just like that.

Basically I'd like to be her. She's fabulous. I could go into great detail about how amazing the show was, but I was meant to be keeping this short and there's already quite a lot of stuff about her on the Internet, written by people who probably know much more about music than I do. But I do urge you to check her out if you haven't already because she is something special. Beautiful voice, beautiful character.

What I am going to talk about though, is her style. You can probably tell from the pictures above, that there's definitely an element of burlesque and old-style glamour there. But she wasn't quite as polished as some of those other ladies (Dita Von Teese et al), there was something a bit more shabby chic about her; pretty much everything she wore was a bit old or vintage, her shoes were worn down, her dress looked damaged and at one point she wore a kimono that had makeup stains on the back. Yet she looked stunning and I found that whole 'give a damn, I'm going to wear this coz I love it, not coz it's fashionable/new/clean' attitude so intriguing.

I very rarely shop for vintage clothing, partly because I never find anything that fits me and partly because I think it's difficult to find really good quality vintage; some of it just looks old and faded and scruffy and that's never really been my thing. But seeing how Camille could take all that worn out stuff and still look glamourous and sexy was just so interesting and it made me think of that kind of bohemian/gypsy/Moulin Rouge type thing, where it's more of a case of wearing whatever you could get your hands on and still looking damn cool. I searched for some photos of this sort of ragamuffin, gypsy, scavenger style, hoping that maybe I'd come across some fashion editorials that played with these ideas, but I couldn't find anything that went along with what I had in mind. This image from The Terrible Infants, a show I saw last summer in Edinburgh, is probably the closest thing to ragamuffin chic I could find;

Anyway, as I didn't manage to find any photo shoots which featured this kind of style, I'm thinking I might rope my sisters into doing one with me; my wardrobe is full of things that I think would work in this context, and I'll use this old nursery rhyme as inspiration;